Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter

Subject: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: GUEST,SharonA
Date: 29 Jun 01 - 03:35 PM

Recently I attended a songwriting workshop where our assignment was to write a song in a style that we admired but couldn't see ourselves using; my specific assignment was to write a ballad about a family member. During the review portion of the workshop, I was advised to find an existing ballad tune to go with my lyrics.

I know next-to-nothing about ballad tunes, so I'm hoping you'll give me some suggestions of tunes that will not be immediately recognizable as already "belonging" to existing lyrics. One of my friends suggested "The Haunted Hunter"; is that ballad too well-known for me to use the tune for this?

My lyrics are written in "common meter" aka "da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH," four lines per verse with an AABB rhyme scheme. With your suggestion(s), if possible, please include a blueclickeything or other reference to a site where I can listen to the tune. Thanks in advance for any ideas you can pass along!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 01 - 05:00 PM

"Callino", c 1580.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: Pinetop Slim
Date: 30 Jun 01 - 12:22 PM

Might be worth looking at shape-note songbooks, which identify common meter hymns with CM next to the title. "Wondrous Love" uses the same tune as one of the "Captain Kidd" ballad settings and I think that's true for some of the other hymns. No blicky to offer, but a search for shape note or fasola would guide you toward one of the on-line songbooks.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: GUEST,SharonA
Date: 02 Jul 01 - 08:42 AM

Thanks, guys! Pinetop, I know less about shape notes than I do about ballads, so this is turning out to be quite an educational quest for me!

Anybody out there have any more tune suggestions?

SharonA

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 Jul 01 - 03:48 PM

Don't worry about familiarity--when you put new words to an old melody, it generally is a surprise to people when you tell them what the melody is--even easier when you give it a different feel (like a rock or jazz feel instead of a traditional feel)--

Given that, you are using an Iambic Tetrameter--A couple of the melodies that work with that are "Greensleeves","God Rest You Merry Gentleman", and"The House of the Rising Sun", "Good Bye, Old Paint"-

The reason that Pinetop Slim suggested the Shape Note Hymns is because the book included information on the scansion for the songs--

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: LR Mole
Date: 02 Jul 01 - 05:08 PM

"Gilligan's Island" theme. Doesn't fit your rhyme scheme, though.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jul 01 - 05:09 PM

When in doubt, you can almost always use Come all ye Tramps and Hawkers. (A midi of the tune is on the DT version at the bottom of the page.)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: SharonA
Date: 02 Jul 01 - 06:07 PM

LR Mole, I HAVE heard "Stairway to Heaven" done to the theme of "Gilligan's Island'! Funny stuff!

"America the Beautiful" would fit the meter of the lyrics, too, but I ain't goin' there, either.

You guys are great; thanks so much. Lemme hear some more!

SharonA (with the ballad-dunce hat at right) <|:^)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 Jul 01 - 09:11 PM

You can have a go at it, as well--check the contemplator site http://www.contemplator.com/ Click here where you will find many, many, MIDI files of tunes (nice arrangements, too) and the lyrics to them. A wonderful melody source for any lyricist!!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Jul 01 - 09:59 PM

Yellow Rose of Texas fits most of the Emily Dickinson stuff--it might work (grin).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: LR Mole
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 11:19 AM

As well as "Casey at the Bat" (just in time for the Fourth) and "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner", if you have a few days to sing it.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: mg
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 02:06 PM

why don't you post a verse and chorus so we can help match it better...I hope you don't choose Tramps and Hawkers, Star of the County Down etc. Those songs have their own words, sometimes many different lyrics and I think they should, barring a very good reason (like it is the only tune that will work..Amergin's song being a good example), be left alone.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: SharonA
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 02:46 PM

Mary, that's a very good idea; I'll post the entire thing so you get the "flavor" of the piece (anyone who wants to skip over this is, of course, free to do so!).

I agree that tagging these lyrics onto "songs [that] have their own words" is not the best method to go about this, and I'd prefer a tune that is either sufficiently obscure that the accompanying words have been lost to the past, or a standard tune to which more than one set of lyrics have already been sung. So here's my set of lyrics:


A TALE OF TWO SISTERS
(©copyright 2001 Sharon E. Abbott)

I'll tell a tale that wanders through the last long century,
I'll tell about two sisters who would lonely spinsters be
As each one cast her shadow o'er the other all her life
And from their graves they warn us still: "Take care to cause no strife."

One infant was the first her doting parents ever bore.
Five other children followed, but t'was she they would adore.
A star, come down from heav'n, they said, and chose the name "Estelle"
But thought their second girl must be a brimstone come from hell.

For younger daughter Alice had been burdened with a spine
That curled and twisted up her back as if it were a vine.
Her parents searched their hearts to find the deeds they might have done
To anger the Almighty, but they could discover none.

The year was Nineteen-Hundred-Five when Alice first shed tears.
Her sorrow would not find an end for 92 long years;
She bore upon her back the hump that doubled her in pain
And carried in her heart the taunts that bowed her down in shame.

Estelle, her older sister, gave to Alice no relief.
The teasing came as surely as the autumn turns the leaf.
She crowed about her beauty; "I'm Ma's favorite," she would drone
And slowly she did turn her little sister's heart to stone.

The daughters grew, as daughters will; one flowered fair and fine:
T'was young Estelle, a maiden who with wisdom filled her mind.
She went to Alice, asking her forgiveness for the past:
But Alice gave a strange reply that left Estelle aghast.

For Alice said, "My sister, though the two of us were raised
To live a kind and selfless life, that God's name might be praised,
For sixteen years I felt the lash your proud tongue was to me.
If you would be forgiven, now for God your tongue must be.

"Go north to cold Alaska for your mission shall be, there,
To heal each child whose heart has frozen in its bitter air
And nurse each fragile spirit that an unkind word could kill...
And never think to marry, for I surely never will.

"I'll make my home with Ma and Pa until they both shall die
And, for the care I'll give to them, they'll bless me by and by.
Their favorite will abandon them; their favorite I will be;
Then they shall offer all the praise and love they've held from me."

Estelle bowed down her head until she met her sister's eye
And said, "I'll do your bidding; I will bid you all goodbye.
I'll be a missionary, and with no man shall I live,
But all the praise you wish to take from me, I cannot give."

Estelle did warm the hearts of children in the Arctic snow
And stories of the spinster's kindness soon would homeward go.
In church, they blessed and praised her as their favorite she became
And Alice, in the fam'ly pew, still cursed her sister's name.

Too soon, Estelle to Heaven flew to seek her God's embrace,
A shining star her bitter sister never could replace.
Poor Alice cared for Ma and Pa until they both were dead
But "How we miss our kind Estelle" was all they ever said.

Then Alice lived alone and grew more twisted every year.
The more she gave to those she loved, the less it gave her cheer.
When she passed on, her name was added to the fam'ly stone:
Estelle's name stands against hers. So forever t'will be shown.

Their infant sister Marion grew to bear me in her time.
She lies now in her grave as well; yet till I lie in mine,
I'll tell my poor aunt's tale and say: If we'd be truly kind
To all we must be always, and leave no cold heart behind.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Obscure ballads in common meter
From: GUEST,Barry T at work
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 03:54 PM

I suggest the melody for The Dawning of the Day.